I'm not worried about what part of their life they needed to massage in order to achieve something that I get to experience as transcendent. Because that's the point of literature, I think: to connect.

I wanted to create an environment in which more than just personal essays could be represented, and in which stranger approaches to making essays could be celebrated.

An essay is something that tracks the evolution of a human mind.

I'm not worried about what part of their life they needed to massage in order to achieve something that I get to experience as transcendent. Because that's the point of literature, I think: to connect.

For a while I just couldn't imagine that there was a place for me in nonfiction. I looked around at what we were calling nonfiction and I thought, "Maybe you do have to go to poetry in order to do this other weird thing in nonfiction."

I know it sounds silly, but disrespecting a dead writer by sitting in a chair that probably never belonged to him still felt like a risk to me. So I chickened out.

I look for the kind of text that doesn't look like the writer I'm considering. Plutarch is a great example.